Genesis 23

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0:00 We're finishing up here the last, I mean, I've talked to several of you about how hard this and narrow down, you've got a lot of verses you like maybe. And don't overthink it, you know. It's not something you can get wrong. I tend to like the stories that have these phrases that stick out to me, so like these verses. Like we talked about, return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.

0:30 We talked about, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. And today we want to talk about the cave of MacPella. I just love that, the cave of MacPella. And when I was reading back through Abraham's life that leads him up to the cave, he camps by the oaks of Marm. When you read Genesis, somebody asked me the other day what my favorite book of the Bible was.

1:01 Maybe that was, Jaden, the other day asked me, what's your favorite book of the Bible? I think it would be Genesis. I love the stories that you can just read it. If you're looking for like, I'm kind of like, I need to just, maybe I need to read some more Bible. Don't start with numbers. Mike. Start with Genesis. Don't start with Leviticus either. That's right. Genesis is great because of things like oaks of Marm. But the story about the cave of MacPella, I really love and have loved for a while.

1:36 And I was looking up today, you know, the cave of MacPella is still there, out there on the Sinai Peninsula. They think they know where it is. Of course, it's been passed between Christian, like Coptic Christians and then Crusaders and then Ottoman Empire and then Crusaders again and then Muslim Empire.

2:07 And there's been churches and mosques and churches and mosques and it's turned back and forth. Jewish people are always like, hey, can we come into? People have been venerating the cave of MacPella for thousands of years. We know that the patriarchs were buried there, like I told the kids. Moses and Sarah, Jacob and Rebecca. Right? Not Moses, no. Abraham. Did I say Moses?

2:39 Oh, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. But what was interesting is that they also think Adam and Eve, traditions said that God buried Adam and Eve in the cave of MacPella and that somehow Abraham knew that. That's why he bought the cave. I was reading some Jewish history. People really love this place. But let's look at the story where it comes in in Genesis chapter 23. Starting at, well, we'll skim through it, but we'll start at verse 1.

3:09 Sarah had lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died at Kyrith Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And Abraham went into mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, I'm a sojourner and forener among you. Give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight.

3:43 Hittites answered Abraham, hear us, my lord, you are a God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead. Of course, they didn't actually think that Abraham was a God among them, but this is like a bartering strategy. They didn't want to settle in the land. They're like, just use one of our tombs. It's not a big deal.

4:13 You got dead people. We got tombs. Just put some hurt people in our tombs. And Abraham's like, I want something more. I want a place. And they're like, no, no, just use one of ours. Don't make a big deal about it. And he goes on and he said to them, if you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me, Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Macpella, which he owns. It is at the end of the field for the full price.

4:45 Let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place. Now Ephron was sitting among them, among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites of all who went in the gate of the city. No, my Lord, hear me. I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it in the sight of the sons of my people. I give it to you.

5:15 Bear your dead. He's like, no, you don't have to buy it from me. I'll just give it to you. Don't worry about it. Here, just have it, which sounds really great. But look at Abraham's response. Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land and he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, but if you will, hear me. I give the price of the field, except it from me, that I may bury my dead there. Abraham is doing something very specific here.

5:50 He wants to buy the land, not have it give it to him, so that he can own it without any dispute. He wants to buy just the cave. They're going to end up selling him the whole field, but he wants to buy it so that he's got it set up, so that he's not just interloping, but it's his. It's something then that he can pass down. They're trying to give it to him because they don't want the foreigner to have land amongst them, but Abraham keeps pressing the point.

6:22 Hey, just let me buy it, guys. They are going to argue with him on the price, but he says, Abraham, listen to Ephron, so the field, they finally gets it, verse 17. The field of Ephron in MacPella, which was to the east of Marm, the field with the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were in the field throughout the whole area was

6:55 made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, before Hall, who went into the gate of the city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of MacPella, east of Marm, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan, the field and the cave. This is in it. We're made over to Abraham and the property and burying place for the Hittites. He puts Sarah in the cave. A chapter later, Abraham dies.

7:26 They put him in the cave. Remember that Jacob dies in Egypt, but he makes them promise to take his bones back and put them in the cave of MacPella, which they do. The cave of MacPella. Why is it my favorite verses? Because of what it means, God had promised Abraham that he would give him that whole

7:59 land. Abraham is part of this group of people. If you read his whole story going back, they're moving up out of the fertile crest in its ancient times. They're moving up out of the fertile crest. His dad gets as far as Huron, which is like this north area. You've got to follow where it's not desert. Then you can come back down and get to the Jordan River. His dad was going to come over that far, but stopped here. The most scholars think that Abraham's family came from this group of people called the

8:30 Hoppe-ru people, which is how they end up. It evolves into the word Hebrew. The reason they think that is the Hoppe-ru people, the etymology going from Hebrew back to Hoppe-ru, but also because these were like socially marginalized and disenfranchised. Abraham had no way to have kids. He didn't own any land in Huron. He didn't have much. He just had his family there. When he's up there in Huron, God says, hey, if you'll follow me, I'll give you a whole land.

9:02 I'll make your offspring as numerous as the sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky, and through you all the world will be blessed. Abraham follows him. On the surface, it's a real bummer because when he dies, he has one kid. The cave of MacPella is the only land that he owns.

9:35 And most of the world doesn't know who he is. He's not a blessing to the whole world. There's a version of Abraham's life where he's a real dummy. God makes this big promise to him, and he actually makes that covenant promise to him three times.

10:07 Same promise, he reiterates it three times. There's something conspicuous though when you look at the story of Abraham and these great promises that God made to him. If you think about being like Lot, who his nephew, who's around him Lot, or one of his servants who follows him out of Huron, right? This conspicuous thing about the promises that God makes to him three times is Abraham's always alone when he gets the promise.

10:37 There's no one else there. Often he's walking by himself at night, two of the three times. He's walking by himself at night, that's why God says, look up at the sky and see all the stars in the sky. I'll give you more kids. And Abraham moves his whole family, orients his whole life trajectory on a promise that a God that he can't see made to him that no one else heard when no one else was around.

11:10 He bets his whole life on this thing. And he brings everybody with him. And how did it go? One kid, one cave in one little part of the world. See I'm saying there's a version of Abraham's life where he's a dummy. Abraham's defining characteristic, Paul will tell us once we get to the New Testament over

11:46 and over again, the great trait of Father Abraham, Paul says, is his faith. He believed and so is credited to him as righteousness. And when you dig down into the word belief and you look at Abraham's life, what does it even mean really? It doesn't mean that he did it right all the time. It doesn't mean that he spoke correctly all the time.

12:17 It doesn't mean that he behaved right all the time. It doesn't even mean that he thought right all the time. It's just when the chips fell, when he was organizing the course of his life, when he decided what he would believe to be true about himself and the world that he was in, he took the word of God for it. So if there is a God that he could not see who just spoke to him individually, he would believe that that God would give him good things and bet all of life on it.

12:51 Dummy. I mean, dummy. You didn't get it. Right? I mentioned my grandma's house as a place that was important to me in St. Charles. When I was thinking about Abraham's life and his, the ways in which he's a dummy, I also

13:24 thought of my grandpa. This is my dad's dad. Really cool guy. I kind of a hero for me as when I was a kid. He was a pastor in a lot of small towns in the Midwest, in Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. A lot of farm towns, old German Lutherans in these farm towns in the Midwest. I don't know how he got onto it, but he got to where he started liking cars, and in the

13:56 Midwest there, there were all these Studebakers that families had abandoned. Studebakers, an old car company that doesn't exist anymore. He had five kids and wasn't making a lot of money. As they got older, he started fixing up old Studebakers. There was a, the Studebaker lark was like one of the cars, like a little coop, like a little sedan. They had a convertible one and a regular one, and they would name all their cars the family.

14:29 They had Annie, was one of the larks, and then they had a convertible one that was called Topless Annie, you know? Annie and Topless Annie. So Jan Drove, Annie and Steve Drove, Topless Annie, you know? And then they had a, they had a silverhawk, 59 silverhawk that my, the youngest uncle Jeff Drove, super cool car for 59 big fins in the back, huge back seat, undersized engine,

15:01 big bubble fenders. When people started to know, they started to recognize this pastor like Studebakers, and they had him sitting out, so he would start driving around in scenes to Studebakers, sitting out in the field, and he would ask them if they wanted them to know, they would just give them to the pastor. Then people started to know they would bring him. So when I was a kid, he had 20 Studebakers that he would collect, and he started having to keep sheds. He would buy sheds and rent out half the spaces and use that to pay his taxes on the thing,

15:33 and then put store his cars in the others, right? And he got to where he was very good, and they would have to like come up with little ways to fix the car so that they would work just right, you know? And he didn't always fix them completely, he just fixed them good enough, famously, right? And so there was one where like something, it was something about the like ignition that wouldn't work right, so they had rigged a rubber duck on the dashboard that went with air and something into the, and he would have to squeeze the rubber duck three times

16:05 and then turn the key and it would start. Stuff like that, you know? Yeah. And so he would always bring different cars down, and then he just got to where he was always working on different cars, he liked working on cars, and he had a Chevy that we called the amazing Technicolor Chevy because at all these different prime, why am I telling you this? At one point I was asking Grandpa why he always had all these crazy cars, and he said, you know, some people, he told me I'm a little kid, he's my grandpa, you know Ben, some

16:37 people they buy brand new cars, which is fine. He said, but that's no fun. He said you get in one of our cars, you never know what was going to happen, anything could happen. It's an adventure. I was thinking about Abraham's life and the options that he had. He stays in the Huron where he's got his wife without means or admission.

17:16 Or he trusts the promise of a God that he cannot see, that no one else has heard, that there is more to his life than that. Abraham didn't get in his lifetime all the offspring more stars than there are in the sky, more sand that there, and then there is on the seashore.

17:47 He didn't get all the land. But you guys, he left Huron and as he made it to Canaan and saw that there were people there and nations, God in the quiet of the evening reaffirmed his promise to Abraham, and he said, I will give this land to you. I will make you, I will give you more offspring under our strength. And so Abraham built an altar right there in Canaan, land that was not his with the

18:19 God who promised and said, I believe it and receive it, I will take it. And then he moved on and at the south end of the land, God promised him again, he built another altar, worshiped to God there at the north and the south of the land. Then a famine comes and he goes into Egypt and does the weird thing with Sarah where he is afraid and can't have courage but doesn't disqualify himself, has a whole adventure in Egypt, talks to the Pharaoh, builds a relationship with the king of Egypt such that

18:49 when they send him out, they send him out with more stuff than he came in with. And he goes out now, he's got a whole herd, he's building up a future, he looks at the land, he's got stuff for his nephew, he's like, dude we are so prosperous, there's not enough room for you, pick whatever side you want and I'll go with God and take the other side. Abraham starts building up, he defeats five kings, he goes to rescue Lot and takes 300 people with him and goes to defeat him. I'm telling you that Abraham lived his life with adventure, mission and purpose.

19:27 This is like a God that he couldn't see and no one else heard made a promise to him. You know a couple years ago when my dad passed away, he died like in December at the end

19:57 of 22. It was a little unexpected, it was quicker than we thought maybe. And you know like the church and the Holy Cross of like Mary like it's just as old as Mary with my sister, it was started in 1983, you know, dad did. And I can't remember the building we were in before then, I can remember the progress

20:27 of evolution, I can remember the property it's on without any buildings on it, walking into it with trees. I can't remember seeing my dad up on top of the building bringing the trusses in for the first one, he G.C. the building project himself the first one. I can remember him forming up the concrete to pour the concrete. Like I have memories all throughout that whole property from Sunday school and preschool with my mom through high school youth group in the back corners, the whole place. And I was walking through there a couple months after dad died, walking through the

21:00 property and so much of it is tied to dad that it was weird that it endured. I was like it feels weird that dad has moved on and all this stuff is still here. Like in my head you know at the end of Lord of the Rings when they kill Sauron and everything that went with Sauron just collapses into the earth. I remember me thought when dad's gone all this stuff should be gone too.

21:33 It was hard for me to believe that it would endure beyond him. I found myself thinking what good are these buildings if he still leaves? What good are his good choices if he still dies? What good is it to have built all this church?

22:04 I'd trade it in to keep him here. And I started thinking I hope he had fun doing that. I hope he built those buildings and did that work because it was a purpose that he felt like was worth his life. It was a mission that animated his living in a way that he liked.

22:38 What I'm trying to say is Abraham got the promise of God and it set him on a course of life that he liked. Purpose and mission broader and deeper than himself. Significance much more vaulted than he could manufacture on his own. So that when he gets to the time of his burial with clear eyes and forethought he says my children are coming back here.

23:09 I need the land rights in perpetuity. Don't give me a grave. Let me buy it because they're all coming back here and I'm going to be right in the middle because God is not done because this world isn't all there is because his promise extended through the generations because I've been involved in a mission that endures, that is worthy of a life that continues. So yeah I'm going to die but the mission will carry on and his promise will endure

23:43 beyond the grave. Abraham, well he might have been a dummy but it wasn't because he trusted God. And that he was wise and courageous. Do you see?

24:17 Following the way of Jesus is to step into a mission and a purpose for your life, a significance that you could not manufacture. A meaning that you could not imagine on your own.

24:55 Your opportunity in following the way of Jesus isn't to be right so that others are wrong. It's not to have all the answers. To follow Jesus isn't to be better. You don't follow Jesus in order that you're better than other people, that you're more right than other people. You don't even follow Jesus so that you might behave correctly all the time.

25:28 You follow Jesus so that you are, your life is centered in something that endures. It carries weight, that's ramification, that matters. I love the story of the cave of MacPella because it reminds me that Abraham knew what he was doing.

26:00 Everybody else might have looked at him and said, this is not working out for you, bud. You bet your life on a dude, on a god you could not see that no one else heard and he promised you land off spring and blessing and you got one kid in a cave, man. And Abraham said, you missed the whole thing. I've been on a mission my whole life without the promise of God I'd have none. And the mission does not end with me but continues for the generations to come, to pick up.

26:36 And we're all celebrating it together. Of course, the cave of MacPella is not the only cave, right? At just the right time, Joseph of America, Matthew walks up and says, put him in my cave. Jesus goes in three days, comes out as the first fruits. We are told that Abraham lives again to see the promise fulfilled, as will we, as will

27:09 grandpa with his cars, dad with his buildings, and each of us. Let me pray that we might take up a mission that God gives us today. Hey Lord, thank you for this room of people. We love you because you have first loved us. Would you set us on mission and purpose to live with meaning and adventure and courage and hope and perseverance and love make lives that matter and endure beyond the grave?

27:48 In Jesus' name we pray.